Iran: Budget Increases for Missiles, Qods Force

Many Western diplomats hoped that the lifting of sanctions and new investments that accompanied the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would bolster the hands of more reform-minded elements within the Iranian political spectrum. If money talks, however, it seems that more hardline elements have the upper hand in where and how to allocate funding. The accompanying remarks by Kazem Jalali, who runs the major research arm for Iran’s parliament, suggest budget increases are looming for Iran’s ballistic missile program and the Qods Force—the elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) charged with export of the revolution.

The March 2017 to March 2018 Iranian budget allocated $7.4 billion to the IRGC. That figure funds not only the IRGC Ground Forces and Navy, but also IRGC universities and a large bureaucracy including the medical department, telecommunications, a personal department, and internal intelligence service. While the proportion of that which the Qods Force receives is not known, the $307 million increase discussed by Jalali certainly represents a huge budgetary increase, by percentage most likely in the middouble digits.

Jalali justifies the budgetary increase by discussing the need “to counter US terrorism.” The Iranian definition of terrorism is more subjective than objective and tends to be colored by an ideological antipathy to the United States. Iranian leaders and the IRGC justify much objectionable behavior by ‘resistance’ or ‘justice.’ When Iranian officials say they seek to counter US-backed terrorism, they may signal an intent to be more aggressive toward states allied with the United States in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

The increase in ballistic missile work signaled by a similar boost of $307 million in the budget indicates a growing reliance by Iran on its ballistic missile forces (alongside its drone capabilities) as one of its fields of emphasis is asymmetric military strategy. This budget increase comes against the backdrop of the 19 June 2017 launch of ballistic missiles from Iran to targets in Syria; suggesting that the capability is no longer symbolic or limited to the testing stage.